


dead solider boys

by IronBitch35730 (Ayita35730)



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: AU Canon Divergence, Angst, iron mourns, pain honestly just pain, zuko dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:34:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27501616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ayita35730/pseuds/IronBitch35730
Summary: Iroh mourns another son.
Relationships: Iroh & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 45





	dead solider boys

He’s counted the moons since the Agni Ki. Every day he marks down feels more and more like a day he doesn’t truly wish to see. Once he felt great joy at the rising sun, now he feels nothing. They pass him like the strokes of a brush, all bleeding into one another—the product something awful and piercing, a picture of grief. 

The days aren’t worth it anymore. 

Iroh finds himself on a mountainside.

He knew better than to let Zuko out of his sight. He  _ knew  _ better. 

_ Leaves from the vine, _

_ Falling so slow. _

If he were a smarter man, he would have known it would be Zuko’s compassion that killed him. It had caused Zuko suffering and strife his entire life and of course, of course something so beautiful and delicate and full of potential would strike him down. The spirits were both kind and merciless in that regard. Zuko didn’t die in rage, for all it tended to consume him in life, nor in grief or sadness. 

No. His poor angry boy died doing something selfless and kind, brave and passionate. He died the man Iroh always hoped him to be. Zuko died the man he never thought he could be.

His nephew who was too young to be so old yet he had to be, had to learn so many hard lessons. He had to face so much strife.

  
  


_ Like fragile, tiny shells,  _

_ drifting in the foam, _

  
  


Lighting flashes across the sky and Iroh addresses the universe.

“Why him _?” _ He can’t help but beg for an explanation. He can’t even have the grace of falling into his grief, he has to lead a country. Has to leave an hierless legacy because the true Firelord died, he was 

_ Murdered. Murdered at his sister’s hand? How can that be his end, after everything he went through, all he lost and all he suffered— _

What is Iroh supposed to believe in now, with him gone? 

  
  
  


The Avatar will try to bring peace but without a young inherent, without a prospect at a future the fire nation will fight his change every step of the way (and they might have anyway). Zuko would have been Ozai’s technical heir—the former fire lord he never bothered to declare otherwise. He would have had the potential to continue the bloodline of fire nation royalty and preserve the culture. They tolerate Iroh, the brother who was forsaken by his father in favor of the youngest. He left the kingdom, then he who won it through the blood and madness of the younger heirs, won it but was so obviously not meant to have it. 

  
  


_ Little soldier boy,  _

_ Goes marching home.  _

He should have protected him from Azula .It was foolish of him to think he didn’t need to any longer. He’s seen in the past she can out maneuver Zuko, of course she wouldn’t just continue to charge him head on. When she saw he corrected the weaknesses in his firebending she went for his other weaknesses. 

He thought the healer going with Zuko would keep him safe. 

He _ thought _ so many things. 

How could he have been so blind?

He screams at the sky and he wonders if this is how Zuko felt, how aching. How raw. He wonders if this is how his nephew lived these past few years. He’s lived with this kind of anguish since his son died, now he feels it twofold. Zuko lost his mother, his father and sister never loved him (at least not in any way that matters) 

Fate just refused to give Zuko happiness. . 

The boy couldn’t be afforded a little more joy? A little more time to be a child?

Why did Iroh have to lose them both so young?

Zuko was even younger than Lu Tien was. Barely a man, mostly a child still. What kind of spirits, what kind of universe allowed such noble, loving boys to be struck down so young? What kind of world can that be the path to peace? All the little dead boys and the people that mourn them know better. 

_ Brave soldier boy. _

_ Come marching home. _

The sky offers no answers and Iroh is alone in the rain. 


End file.
